Leonardo Jaimes Marín

Leonardo Jaimes Marín has dedicated his entire life to defending human rights. He began as a Claretian order seminarian in 1988, a year later he began accompanying farmers from El Carmen de Chucuri and since then has remained devoted to a “profound life choice at the service of marginalised sectors” as he describes his work. Between 1991 and 1994 he coordinated the albergue, a farmers’ hostel for displaced small-scale farmers, in Barrancabermeja, a gratifying period because of the work he was doing, but also full of risks: he suffered threats and attacks until he was forced to leave. He was one of the founders of the Inter-Church Justice and Peace Commission (CIJP). Between 2007 and 2015 he was a lawyer with the Santander office of the Foundation Committee in Solidarity with Political Prisoners, and in 2008, together with other human rights defenders, he founded the Equipo Juridico Pueblos. Now he combines working as a Criminal Law professor at the Universidad Industrial de Santander (UIS) with defending human rights, and he affirms that he will continue to work alongside victims until impunity is overcome.